A thousand miles away.
Northern Kyoto.
Among the mountains, low-hanging dark clouds pressed down until the peaks were reduced to mere blurred silhouettes.
Thick fog surged up from the valley floor, carrying the fishy stench of rotting leaves and mud, shrouding everything in a grayish-white haze.
On this ridge where even birds were reluctant to tread, a man stood.
He wore an elegant kimono, possessed a handsome face, and his skin was excessively pale.
Red vertical pupils contracted slightly within the mist.
Kibutsuji Muzan.
Beneath his feet was a mess of shattered rocks, charred earth, and blood.
A great deal of blood.
And it wasn't anyone else's; it was his own.
New, old, dried, and not yet coagulated... layer upon layer, it covered the ground for several yards around his feet.
He had 'died' here many times.
Then he came back to life, and died again.
Over and over.
Muzan's expression was very calm.
It wasn't the calm of relief, but the numbness of habit.
He suddenly cast his gaze toward the east, in the direction of Musashi Province; it was too far to see, but he could feel it.
The seven 'demons' he had sent out were completely annihilated.
They died very cleanly.
Not even a trace of their lingering aura remained.
Yes, the evil demons attracted to Kaede Village by Tsubaki... were actually sent there intentionally by Muzan to gather information.
After all, one of his subordinates had died there before, so he had to find out exactly what it was.
To check if it was the Demon Slayer Corps.
And those seven demons were considered relatively powerful ones that he had carefully selected.
At this moment, they had once again been wiped out entirely.
Fortunately, this time, those demons had 'brought' him sufficiently interesting news.
Their disappearance was actually related to the reason he had come here.
Muzan withdrew his gaze and silently turned around, facing another direction.
At the end of the ridge, the 'mist' was even thicker.
That was Demonic Qi, so dense it had almost condensed into substance, a grayish-white Demonic Qi that seemed like a natural phenomenon.
Like a cloud that would never dissipate, it occupied the deepest part of the mountains.
Within a ten-mile radius of this area, the vegetation was withered, the ground was cracked, and even the stones had fine fissures squeezed out of them by that sense of pressure.
It was pure crushing force brought about by its very existence.
Living creatures did not dare to approach.
Because at the center of that cloud, something was crouching.
Seven and a half meters.
That was its height when its body was curled up.
If it stood up—no one knew how tall it would be, because it hadn't stood up in two hundred years.
Its size was ridiculously massive.
Though it had a human-like silhouette, its two thick legs were coiled beneath it with backward-curving knees, resembling the hind legs of a spider; its feet were broad, with five toes clawing into the rocky ground, using the entire mountaintop as its seat.
It also had six arms protruding from the sides of its torso.
The top two were the thickest, resting on its knees, with knuckles as wide as the mouth of a bowl.
The middle two were slightly thinner, folded across its chest.
The bottom two were the longest, hanging down to the ground with fingertips submerged in the soil.
The most terrifying part was its face.
—Or rather, its mask.
A white bone mask covered its entire face.
The design of the bone mask was somewhere between a human and a spider, with a broad forehead, flared cheekbones, and a sharp chin; the surface was smooth as porcelain, with only three narrow slits for the eye sockets and mouth.
Behind the slits were two pools of ghostly green light.
Those were its eyes.
Behind the bone armor, wild and messy red hair could be seen.
Tsuchigumo.
According to Kanbe Hikaru's summary, and the evolutionary patterns observed by some Kyoto demons like Kidomaru, it was a Great Yokai that had undergone at least thirteen molts, completely finishing its qualitative transformation into Gaseous Transformation.
It was a standout, perhaps even the strongest, among the common Tsuchigumo demon group; in ancient times, as the leader of the Tsuchigumo, it was even an ancient demon capable of standing alongside Shuten-dōji and Daitengu—ill-tempered and bloodthirsty.
Its favorite thing was to challenge the strong.
It had once been severely injured while challenging the Lord of All Monsters of that era and fell into a deep sleep.
Now, it had only just awakened.
And it was still in a dazed, cranky state of having just woken up.
It was the target of Muzan's trip, the existence he sought to invite using the orders of Hagoromo Gitsune, under the assumed name of a minor demon under Kidomaru's command.
To Muzan, this was truly interesting.
Those who killed his demons weren't the Demon Slayer Corps, but the priestess and demon guarding the Shikon Jewel—the same fellow who had caused Kidomaru's defeat.
And his goal in coming here to invite Tsuchigumo was also them.
It was what one would call a perfect coincidence.
However, before this, Muzan had actually come many times.
He had delivered messages many times.
And he had died many times.
Those bloodstains were all left from before.
Fortunately, Muzan never lacked patience.
As always, amidst the thick mist of the deep night, he walked toward that even denser cloud of fog.
His pace was neither fast nor slow.
With every step, the rocks beneath his feet would make a cracking sound—not because he crushed them, but because the pressure of the Demonic Qi he faced was causing the earth itself to fracture.
When he was still twenty yards away from Tsuchigumo, he stopped.
Experience told him that getting any closer would result in being slapped to death.
"Here again?"
From behind the bone mask, a voice emerged.
Coarse and deep, it sounded like the roar of a giant boulder rolling down a mountain compressed into a human voice, and it carried extreme impatience.
"Lady Hagoromo Gitsune requests that you—"
He didn't finish his sentence.
The two arms hanging on the ground moved.
The speed was completely mismatched with its massive size.
A giant palm slapped down.
Boom.
Muzan's body was smashed into the ground.
His entire body from the chest up turned into a mist of blood, while his legs remained stuck in the crater that had been smashed out.
But soon, as the mist outside the mountain surged... another Kibutsuji Muzan appeared from the outside and walked in.
His kimono was perfectly intact, and his face was as handsome as ever.
He glanced at the legs of the original'self' left behind, his expression unchanged.
"This is the seventeenth time, Lord Tsuchigumo," he said.
"Then why the hell aren't you dead yet?"
Tsuchigumo's voice was full of irritation.
The green light behind the bone mask flickered, and all six arms moved simultaneously—not to attack this time, but simply to express impatience.
However, the sight of six arms twitching at once was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
"You cannot kill me, Lord Tsuchigumo," Muzan said.
"I know."
Tsuchigumo's middle two arms uncrossed from its chest and spread to the sides, the movement unexpectedly carrying a hint of being a rascal—forming a bizarre contrast with its terrifying appearance.
"That's why it's annoying."
It moved its jaw, the bone mask making a creaking sound.
"A little thing that won't die, running here every few days to make noise. If this were two hundred years ago, I would have chewed you into nothing but crumbs in one bite."
"But you've grown weaker, so you can't chew me into nothing now."
"..."
There was silence for two seconds.
Tsuchigumo's top two arms lifted from its knees, fingers interlaced, propping up its chin.
That posture, combined with the white bone mask, actually gave off a strange... sense of contemplation.
"Fine... for the sake of your persistent efforts, I'll give you a chance to speak, brat."
"What does that fellow Hagoromo Gitsune want me to do this time?"
"The situation in Kanto has changed."
This was the first time in nearly a month that Muzan was able to speak:
"That area was originally handled by Lord Kidomaru, but currently Lord Kidomaru is unable to deal with it, so Lady Hagoromo Gitsune needs you—"
"Kidomaru?"
Tsuchigumo's tone carried a clear sneer: "That brat who follows Shuten around? Isn't he at least somewhat capable of fighting? Even he can't handle it?"
"He had an arm broken by an Oni Samurai and a priestess working together."
The green light behind the bone mask brightened.
"Oh?"
The end of the word was drawn out.
With interest.
Not interest in the situation, but interest in 'combat'.
Muzan noticed this.
"That shrine maiden and the Oni Samurai... possess the Shikon Jewel."
All six arms stopped.
The green light behind the bone mask suddenly brightened.
"The Shikon Jewel?"
"Yes."
The air froze.
Even the Demonic Qi permeating for miles stopped flowing.
Tsuchigumo did not speak; it seemed to be thinking about something.
For a long time.
So long that Muzan subconsciously began to feel that he would be crushed into pieces this time as well.
Then, that rough, deep voice sounded again.
It was not rage, nor was it agreement.
It was simply—
"Let me sleep for a few more days."
The six arms returned to their positions.
The top two returned to the knees, the middle two returned to the chest, and the bottom two hung back to the ground.
"A few days later—we shall see!"
Muzan's vertical pupils flickered.
He did not pursue the matter.
After all, 'We shall see in three days' was the closest answer to an agreement he had received since coming here seventeen times.
Every previous answer had been "Get lost," or simply crushing him to death.
It was progress.
Muzan turned and walked into the fog.
Behind him, Tsuchigumo's massive body curled up again, its six arms folded, looking like a silent hill.
The green light on the bone mask slowly dimmed.
But after Muzan had walked a long way, he faintly heard a sound—
An extremely faint sound coming from behind the bone mask.
It sounded like someone talking to themselves.
"The Shikon Jewel... is it the thing left behind by that student of Suzuka, that Midoriko..."
"Interesting."
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